ratione hunc domum suam ducit, eumque apud
se hospitio excipit, eique benigne facit. Atque marito suo et filio
fratrique rerum necessariarum curam demandat; neque dum hospes apud eam
habitat, nisi necessarium est, maritus eam adit." A like custom prevails
among the Chukchis and Koryaks in the vicinity of Kamtchatka.
(_Elphinstone's Caubul; Wood_, p. 201; _Burnes_, who discredits, II. 153,
III. 195; _Laon. Chalcond._ 1650, pp. 48-49; _Kurd de Schloezer_, p. 13;
_Erman_, II. 530.)

["It is remarkable that the Chinese author, _Hung Hao_, who lived a
century before M. Polo, makes mention in his memoirs nearly in the same
words of this custom of the Uighurs, with whom he became acquainted during
his captivity in the kingdom of the _Kin_. According to the chronicle of
the Tangut kingdom of Si-hia, Hami was the nursery of Buddhism in Si-hia,
and provided this kingdom with Buddhist books and monks." (_Palladius_,
l.c. p. 6.)--H. C.]

NOTE 4.--So the Jewish rabble to Jeremiah: "Since we left off to burn
incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to her, we
have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by
famine." (_Jerem._ xliv. 18.)

CHAPTER XLII.

OF THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS.

Chingintalas is also a province at the verge of the Desert, and lying
between north-west and north. It has an extent of sixteen days' journey,
and belongs to the Great Kaan, and contains numerous towns and villages.
There are three different races of people in it--Idolaters, Saracens, and
some Nestorian Christians.[NOTE 1] At the northern extremity of this
province there is a mountain in which are excellent veins of steel and
ondanique.[NOTE 2] And you must know that in the same mountain there is a
vein of the substance from which Salamander is made.[NOTE 3] For the real
truth is that the Salamander is no beast, as they allege in our part of
the world, but is a substance found in the earth; and I will tell you
about it.

Everybody must be aware that it can be no animal's nature to live in fire,
seeing that every animal is composed of all the four elements.[NOTE 4] Now
I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish acquaintance of the name of Zurficar, and he
was a very clever fellow. And this Turk related to Messer Marco Polo how
he had lived three years in that region on behalf of the Great Kaan, in
order to procure those Salamanders for him.[NOTE 5] He said that the way
they got them was by digging in that mounta